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How to Live Your Life [Even With a Baby on Your Hip]

As a mom, I’m pretty sure I make a gazillion mistakes daily. I’m probably not actually making that many mistakes, but it sure can feel like it, right? On top of that, we have often get that overwhelmed feeling of not having our own life. We’re working our tail feathers to the bone without ever feeling like we’re shaking them loose. Girl, I’ve been there. I feel you. I learned a few things along the way though that help me to live my best life with my baby on my hip. Today, I am going to share some of those ways with you.

Before we begin, I want to remind you that we have a wonderful Facebook community set up for you ladies. It’s a community of support, love, and respect built just to make sure that you always get to feel empowered and ready to face any challenge. It’s a loyal group of mom friends who won’t judge you. Click the image below to get access!

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Now let’s get crackalackin’ on those tips, yes?

1. Brainstorm What is Important to You

I can’t even begin to stress the importance of this one. You need to know what actually matters to you. I want you to sit down with a pen and paper and write it down. This should hurt a little bit because you should be seriously thinking about the subject and getting it ALL out. I’m talking about brainstorming so deep that in the end you’ll have to rank the things that are important to you so that you can actually make room for them all in your lifestyle. I want you to be thoughtful about this step because it’s going to be an important building tool to the next step on this list.

2. Write a Family Mission Statement

I never understood the importance of this step before Sweet Baby J, but I totally get it now. When I first started being a parent, it was easy to get caught in the wheel of saying yes to #ALLTHETHINGS, but it was wrong for my family and it’s wrong for yours too. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I needed a family mission statement. That’s nice, I thought, but how do you write one? Well, it took me awhile to figure it out. I wrote probably 20 of them before ours stuck.

But then I realized I had skipped step 1. I had to go back and brainstorm what was important to me, my spouse, and my child. This allowed me to finally have freedom. I was free to make choices that we actually wanted.

How to use it effectively:

Start by doing step 1. Remember that in order to create a successful family you need to know what that success looks like. It’s much like running a business. You want your company/family to look like the life you want not the life you have to live. Put the most important things toward the top of the statement and then the lesser things toward the end. Now use this as your guiding principle for when to say no.

3. List People Who Can Help

Yep! You heard me correctly. You can’t do it on your own, but you can elicit the help of your village. I realize that we live further and further from our family, but they aren’t your only village. You have daycare workers, babysitters, neighbors, friends, and anyone who helps you live your life. This means that you will need to elicit the help of your immediate family and friends, but it’ll be worth it. I promise. Get your husband to do his dad thing while you workout. Hire a babysitter for a monthly date night. Ask the neighbors for help building something around the house. Anything that is important to you can be done either by yourself or with a little help.

4. Schedule it

You’ve probably heard this a million times as of late, but it’s super important. If you don’t make time for it in your schedule, it won’t get done. That workout you’ve been dying to do for a month has to get put on your calendar. If it’s not on your calendar at a set time, I promise you’ll find a billion other things to fill your time with including but not limited to laundry, dishes, and sitting on your butt reading a book. All of those things can be a valuable use of your time, but they should be scheduled as well. I do laundry once a week!

How to use it effectively:

Your calendar is your friend. It allows you to say no to other things in your life so that you can get to things that need to get done. Your calendar will also remind you of the things you want to get done. I want you to use beautiful colors to classify all the different aspects of your life and make sure that your schedule fits your family mission statement.

5. Say no

Use your Family Mission Statement as your guide in order to say no to things that aren’t important to you and your family. This will allow you to make better use of your schedule as well. You’ll no longer be filling it with things that are only marginally important or that you downright hate. Okay, I’ll be honest with you here sometimes you have to do things you don’t like in life, but it should be minimal. You may also need to practice this step to get good at it. I usually start with I’ll look at my calendar as it buys you a little time and you can see if you legitimately have something you’d rather be doing with that time.

— Yvonne

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Yvonne Marcus

Hello! I'm Yvonne. I'm a wife and mother of one. We are currently living in Asheville and taking advantage of everything that it has to offer. (Image Credit: Continuum Photography)

I love this so much, and couldn’t agree with you more!! It IS possible, because at the end of the day – even as parents, WE are in charge of calling the shots in our lives!! All it takes is a little introspection, a little planning, a little intention and a whole lotta gumption 😉

Great tips! This is something I have been thinking about a lot recently. Sometimes it’s so hard to balance everything: work, family time, and me-time. There are never enough hours in the day, especially with a toddler!!

Sometimes I think we spend too much time focused on balancing and not enough time focusing on prioritizing. What are we trying to balance? The answer is going to be different for everyone. Plus, I believe we can find ways to do a lot of things we love together with other parts of our lives. It’s all about knowing what you want. I’m so glad you read and commented. I hope that you’ll do a family mission statement and that it will help you with your balance.

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Hey, I’m Yvonne!

My life’s passion is to help moms lead their ideal life. My hope is that I’ll be able to help you live that life as well. The life you were meant to live all the time and not just in those quiet moments at home.